For years, scientists have been warning us about the looming crisis of climate change. However, according to a recent study, nearly 15 percent of Americans do not believe climate change is real, and 37 percent are not worried about it. In another study, less than half of Americans (45 percent) believe climate change will pose a serious threat in their lifetime. Even though the majority of people worldwide express worry about climate change, most don’t feel that they have the power to make a significant difference. How do you make collective change if a major subset of a population does not agree that a problem exists, or feels helpless about the problem? One neuroscientist thinks the answer may lie in our brain: change how people perceive climate change.
Why our brain struggles with climate change
Ann-Christine Duhaime, Nicholas T. Zervas Distinguished Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School and the faculty lead of Harvard Global Health Institute’s Climate Change, War, and Health Scholarly Working Group, believes that climate change is too big and too complicated a problem for humans to wrap their heads around easily.
“It is difficult for us to perceive it because we never had to deal with something like this before,” said Duhaime. “We are the first generations to have to face this rapid, human-caused climate change problem. There is no historical reference point for us to understand it and evolution didn’t need for us to recognize and act on this kind of crisis that didn’t exist when we were being designed mostly for short-term survival benefit.”
She explained that our brain is designed to make calculations using millions of minuscule molecular changes weighted primarily to enhance short-term survival success. However, it does not perform as well when dealing with long-term problems such as climate change, making it hard to imagine the connection between our choices today and the future 50 or 100 years from now.
“And the way we often frame the climate issue is not helping either, when we stress doom and gloom without giving something to work towards,” Duhaime added. “The brain relies on the reward system to make decisions and to change behavior. While fear can be a motivator, research shows that there is a better chance of behavioral change if there is a positive reward attached to it.”
Our adaptive brain
Duhaime said that the brain is inherently designed to be exquisitely flexible. Humans are highly adaptable to changes in their environment. This adaptability, or plasticity in neural terms, is what allows us to discover new strategies to meet new challenges — one of which is that the brain can change what it finds rewarding as circumstances change.
“What if we offer an attainable, alternative positive vision — a compelling reward — that connects to the specific actions people take today?” asked Duhaime. “Given new information presented in a relatable way, the brain can make different decisions and take different actions. If we take climate action and also prioritize diplomatic solutions now to reduce these synergistic crises, we are shifting how we use our human and economic resources in a way that can bend the curve towards a more livable future for generations to come. But this requires a paradigm shift, which is challenging, to say the least.”